How to play gladiator efficiently?

[stardrifter]

theres more to tanking then just knowing your rotation, a big part is knowing the monsters/bosses and their abilities/mechanics. Mainly boss fights, you need to know positioning, timing, and what cooldowns to use and when. The role requires alot more strategy and knowledge than the others. It sounds like you have yet to reach level 30 and unlock Paladin so you don't have to worry about alot of that yet, but turning the bosses away from group is generally just a good habit to get into, as well as tanking by the edge of the arena most times, not all.

[BillyKaplan]

Total Eclipse

Isn't that a level 41 skill? They should be a PLD about that time already then.

Others covered most of what needs to be said, but what I usually do at the lower levels is Shield Lob, then Flash 2-3 times depending on how big a difference in level and gear there is between you and your party. Combo skills wise, alternate your targets and save your finisher and highest agro generator for the target the dps are focusing down, if such exist. To support AoE agro, and to at least keep from losing things to the healer if you have several enemies, I'd recommend using Flash again every other combo unless you see they're really ripping off of you, then use it more often.

[Lilseph]

Here, my boy.

[BluexBird]

If someone tells you you're a bad tank, ask them why. If they refuse to explain, just ignore them and continue with you the dungeon.

Here are some quick guidelines just to help you know you're on the right track:

1. Everything has to be hitting you. If for some reason, something starts attacking someone else, your top priority has to be to get it back. Use Provoke for that. I'd like to point out here that even if the DPS has something attacking them, there's no reason to panic since any single monster does LAUGHABLE damage even to non-tanks, so if they're complaining about this in particular, just tell them to stop whining.

2. Make sure you turn things around, especially during boss fights. Some monsters have cleave attacks. If you have to dodge an attack, go back to the spot you were in after you dodge. This isn't really something that tends to be complained about, but I've seen it go through some people's heads.

3. At later levels (60+), if you are comfortable, you might want to start picking up more than one group of monsters, to speed up the dungeon. If you do this, make sure you use skills that reduce the damage you take.

Reason #3 is often what a lot of people complain about. They've seen other tanks pull 2-3 packs before, and want you to do it too. But just because you don't do it, doesn't mean you're a bad tank. Especially not at dungeons below level 60.

Ultimately though, if you've got 2 and 3 covered, it doesn't really matter what you do. In time, you will learn new things and get better, so just ignore anything that isn't constructive criticism.

[Lambdafish]

Here, my boy.

Very informative, if not a little outdated

[Canadane]

Isn't that a level 41 skill? They should be a PLD about that time already then.

46 in fact!
But nice catch, my bad.

[Nihility]

gladiator and marauder are kind of semi-crippled before they get their job upgrades. It would definitely help to know the nature of the complaints though

Something to help with aggro for aoe is the enemy list will have little green/yellow/red bubbles next to there names showing how securely you have aggro.
The most important things i can think of for just generic tank stuff is
1) try to identify the ranged mobs and pull the melee ones to them, and try to arrange yourself so the monsters are making a fan pattern in front of you instead of a circle around you. It gets easier the more you do it
2) the moves that show a telegraph on the ground generally still hurt tanks pretty badly so strafing out of them and back in once they disappear will minimize damage you take and minimize monsters moving around as well
3) there is not much of it at low level but try to wear as much "gladiator/marauder" gear as you can rather than "disciple of war" it makes a big difference

other than that, try to keep in mind a lot of people have been doing the same low level dungeons almost daily for years and have grown a bit jaded so the ability to ignore people that are being jerks just because they're spoiled will do you well.
You should also have access to the novice training grounds near aleport since that's right next to the first dungeon, get yourself some useful training and pretty great for it's level gear and one of the most useful rings in the entire game from it

[Rongway]

You mentioned facing monsters away from allies... I did get a comment about this with the Ifrit trial...

Another thing that many tanks learn for the first time during the Ifrit fight: if there are adds during a boss fight, many times it's not the tank's job to deal with them. In Ifrit in particular, the tank should not attack the nail because the DDs will get caught by Ifrit's fire breath.

Also, if the healer Rescues you to a different position because you're cleaving the party, please don't go back to what you were doing that was cleaving the party.

[Raldo]

I agree with many others' comments, though I'll add a few more, since it's unclear what specific problem people have with you.

• Don't stand in the "bad".
Many hard-hitting moves are telegraphed by an orange indicator on the ground. You should try to avoid those. Hopefully that's obvious, but I'll mention it just to be safe.

• Don't move a lot while you're tanking.
Several people mentioned "face things away from the group", but it's equally important to mention "please try to rotate/move the monsters as little as possible". Obviously, you'll still need to dodge the bad stuff mentioned above, but always try to return to your original position. Other jobs have moves that work better when striking monsters from the back or sides, and it's difficult to hit those directions if they monsters are spinning/moving.

• Dungeon speed.
I suspect this may be the actual reason people might complain about you. People hate it when dungeons run slower than needed.
Since you're doing low-level dungeons, people may be bitching if you're pulling small groups of monsters. Once you've leveled past a dungeon and you've gotten used to the dungeon layout, it becomes obvious that certain groups of monsters are so weak that you could easily pull multiple groups at a time (the first two groups of monsters in Sastasha are a good example). So many people have run all these dungeons so much that it seems obvious to them, but for newer players it's definitely not obvious at all.

With that said, there isn't really anything you can do about this until you are comfortable with each dungeon.

At least 80% of the time, the monsters are aggroing ME and NOT THEM. Yet despite my efforts, other players get mad.

What am I missing here? Like I said, I'm already using flash. Exactly how many times do I need to spam FLASH in order to COMPLETELY SECURE aggro?

"80% of the time" is not NEARLY sufficient to be a tank; you should be aiming for ~99%. Also, this may seem contradictory, but they may be complaining if you're flashing too much. Once you have a decent enmity lead, you should be actually hitting the monsters, not just flashing endlessly. This will be gear dependent, but you should only need to flash 1~3 times to get solid threat.

Also worth mentioning that flash trumps shield lob; you shouldn't be using shield lob if you're in melee range.

[MoroMurasaki]

I admit I just skimmed through here but I didn't see any mention of your actual level, OP. If you're at or above 30 you should make sure to complete any class quests you have to unlock Paladin. There is literally no reason not to, playing a class above 30 without your upgraded job stone equipped is only hurting you.

I know you mentioned "low level dungeons" but I don't know exactly what that entails. You should be a Paladin before you do Brayflox's Longstop at level 32.

At that point you will get Shield Oath which makes generating enmity to keep everything hitting you much easier.